{"id":1710,"date":"2010-01-26T01:28:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T08:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/26\/you-really-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-say-that\/"},"modified":"2010-01-26T01:26:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T08:26:13","slug":"you-really-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-say-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/26\/you-really-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-say-that\/","title":{"rendered":"You really shouldn’t be allowed to say that!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Citizens United Fallout<\/a> (much more at the link)<\/p>\n

With partisan tensions running high in Washington, it’s an easy political shot to scapegoat pariah multinationals like AIG. The Court’s language, though, rejects such efforts to silence unpopular voices in the corporate form. “We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.<\/p>\n

Instead of attempting to throw a futile legislative wrench into Citizens United, Congress should lift some arbitrary restrictions on candidates and political parties. Contribution limits should be raised, coordination between candidates and parties should be allowed in order to respond to independent speech, and the tax credit for contributions should be restored in order to incentivize small donors.<\/p>\n

Americans have a long tradition of evaluating political messages and making their own decisions. To suggest that citizens can be led like lemmings by the noise of campaign ads treats voters like fools. It’s time for Congress to realize that in a free and democratic process, it cannot silence speech with which it disagrees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s obvious that a Democratic Congress is entirely willing to explore every possible way of protecting its incumbency, and making it harder for new candidates and new ideas to be made known to the public, let alone whistle blowing and simple correction of the public record.<\/p>\n

The risible thing here is that the main stream media are themselves a “special interest,” as is every politician who ever gets in front of a camera. There are no interests that aren’t “special”, and the point of the American founding, among other things, was to avoid privileging any group, or silencing any group, the proximate effect of campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n

The Democrat Congress isn’t going to give up easily on stifling the speech of its competitors.  Sadly, some mushy Republicans will probably help them.  McCain-Feingold is a disaster, but maybe for once the court is going to get it right in rolling back Congressional infringements on the Constitution.<\/p>\n

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